3 replies to this topic

[Soul]

Yeah, I'd give more info, but it's late.

I'll show the trailer for now.

I'll give more info on it sometime in the afternoon were I am, after I get home from school.

Edited by Soul, 23 May 2007 - 05:02 AM.

[Soul]

Ok sorry for double post, but I got more news.

I'm at school atm I promise to post some info to help you all understand this more when I get home.

Edit: As I said, Here's some info.

Edit2: More info for ya.

Edited by Soul, 23 May 2007 - 06:41 PM.

[Verrückt]

I think its funny, the Russians have a bad habit of losing entire divisions. Other than that i need to see some gameplay to tell if i'm gonna buy it yet.

[Dexter]

You have something to back up these words with? Verrückt you really annoy me, from what you write one could say you're just a pissed off kid, no matter whether it's actually true or false. Really, what you say is just a form of trolling.


Anyway. Got the first impressions.
And based on that, I'm going to trade this game for something different next week.
I'll start with the storyline as the least important part of such genre (especially given that there isn't much of a storyline in EW). From the beginning i should have expected from Tom Clancy's franchise that all the claims made by the developers of their passion to make the storyline objective and not biased towards one of the factions would turn out to be lies. However i didn't, so probably it was the way campaign began that formed my overall negative opinion on the game, but at least i hope that this wasn't the only case. Russia is clearly depicted as a villain, secretly supporting terrorist organizations, conducting false flag operations, killing civilians. Is... Is there something wrong with me, or all of this is actually a prerogative of the different country? US are depicted as a honest victim of the conspiracy, but seeing as the whole game turns out to be a hate propaganda, Clancy's intentions seem to be somewhat different of what he managed to invent for his United States. But really, that's not the only thing that bothers me about the storyline, if you don't care about who's the bad guy and who's the good one, you still will not like it, because after 4 or 5 missions storyline pretty much ceases to exist, and all of the campaign is reduced to a series of skirmish battles. I should have stopped playing this after a "would be Russian" guy pronounces Spetsnaz as Shpetsnaz.

More surprises came when i got more comfortable with the game. Contrary to my expectations this game turned out quite simple in it's core. When i heard about it for the first time, when i saw the promos, read about the barracks, i was expecting WiC-style gameplay with more diversity, with more upgrades, i was expecting to see US IFV as a basis for several vehicles, like in real world FCS program, not just AA-capable IFV, i was expecting more faction diversity, Smerch launchers of Russian command vehicles, i was expecting all those tricks like airlifting infantry in the midst of battle, using crowds of those armed drones, chem weapons those gas masks on the soldiers promised. But contrary to that, developers excluded from the early game concept all the features that made factions distinct, now it's all about differences in appearance. Even more to say - game is simpler than WiC in terms of unit choices within each faction, it is pretty much reduced to riflemen/RPG/IFV/Tank/Gunship/Artillery. There isn't much potential to reinforce your army, thanks to that battles tend to be ridiculously short and rather resemble Mark of Chaos than WiC. All of the support powers are limited to one sort of Airstrike (remember how much diversity in the term "airstrike" there was in WiC?), force recon (which is just a bunch of contemporary ground forces sitting in the designated location and doing nothing), and that EMP feature which in terms of result isn't different much from an airstrike. The "no magic" choice, developers made, means in practice that there are almost no abilities you could use instead of just ordering your units to attack something. All of that made the game quite boring.
Controls are a disappointment too. There was made probably a righteous attempt to make em as realistic as possible, but in the end unit-linked camera became a setback because of it's tendency to limit player's actions. For example, if you don't have a C3I vehicle, you cant set ambushes, or simple arrange an echeloned defence perimeter, since your actions are pretty much limited to "go to uplink N" and "attack that suddenly appeared enemy unit N". Moving your forces across the map randomly without sitrep (tactical map available at C3I vehicle) is a real pain in the ass, because you have to use highly angled camera that is moving (if all the terrain after 100m melting into the horizon is not enough). But even in sitrep mode moving your units is not comfortable enough because if doesn't feature an accurate representation of the terrain you are fighting on. Another problem is with the threat identification - there are only 3 types of tactical icons you may distinct units by - infantry, vehicle, helicopter. To figure out if it's a tank or an IFV (given that it's not close enough to identify it visually) you have to move the cursor over the unit - just another unnecessary action. In the end all of the innovated control features lead to nothing but the frustration.
Bored and Frustrated. Not exactly the feelings you would normally expect from a game you're buying?
Smart guys decided to make game more realistic with new controls and less complicated with no special abilities, but ultimately failed. I remember other smart guy, who decided to omit rock/paper/scissors from his RTS, and that RTS started to suck ass big time in the end. I guess you all know what i mean. Experimenting with the gameplay may not always be a good thing. In fact to this day there was only one successful RTS experiment - the one Relic conducted.

Above that, game doesn't feature much authentic value. Contrary to developers' claims, 80% of involved gear is completely fictional and not based on real life prototypes. But even what is linked to the reality is presented with severe mistakes. Russian C3I vehicle is named MAZ-660, as a blatant disregard of the fact that actual Russian command vehicles inherit their names from their structural belonging rather than from the chassis they are based on. Command vehicles of tank and riflemen divisions are named "KShM-<number>", of other branches - "15V<number>". APC's and howitzers are based on SAR G6 vehicles, as if Russia didn't have it's own counterparts. European Volvo A30D truck was mistakenly made as a 6-wheel truck instead of 4-wheel platform carried by 2-wheel tractor. US FCS program was almost completely ignored.

Generally the game feels on the same level as some Dune I. Developers wanted to create RTS from a scratch, and created a different RTS genre that is only at the first steps of it's evolution. And what is more funny, that evolution would normally lead to the existing RTS format, only through the other way.

So, as a conclusion, i'd say that if there's something going to save this game's sales that be Tom Clancy's name and overrated reviews on game observer websites and magazines (and yes, i think that poor reviews this game earned are still overrated and were paid for). Generally it's a bad thing when developer starts to using franchise name to boost poor game's popularity instead of making good games to boost popularity of the franchise.

Edited by Dexter, 03 December 2008 - 05:27 PM.